


Birthday Present

by TheonSugden



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Blood, Cuts, Gen, M/M, Talk of Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-26 00:27:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3830398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheonSugden/pseuds/TheonSugden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aaron helps Adam celebrate his birthday...and cope with his problems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birthday Present

“No good?”

Aaron looked down at the beef stew Moira had fixed especially for them before she had to check on the cows.

“S’fine,” he said, after a swallow. “Just surprised…”

Adam grabbed Aaron’s bowl and began chowing down what Aaron hadn’t finished.

“Then why the face?” he spat through a full mouth.

“Right now it’s cos you’re a pig,” Aaron playfully sneered, “and then…guess this wasn’t where I thought you’d wanna spend your birthday.”

Adam shrugged as he kept eating.

“Where should I be? Strip club?”

Aaron rolled his eyes.

“No…won’t let ya in, since you look about 12 and all.”

Adam slammed the bowl down, seemingly not noticing the food flying onto his best shirt.

“I AM NOT…oh shit! Shit!!!”

Aaron tried and failed not to laugh as he wiped down an exasperated Adam’s front.

“You’re an idiot. Go get changed while I get your pressie.” 

As he watched Adam run upstairs, he couldn’t help thinking of all the times he’d watched Adam change clothes that first year they were mates, before the night Aaron had tried to kiss him. Adam had been such a goofy kid most of the time, but there’d been something lost about him too, something that had made Aaron feel like they’d met for a reason. He’d wanted to put his hand to Adam’s bare chest, feel him, know him, but it was as much about the worship of a god as it was about sex. Adam had been fit as fuck - still was - but it was something else. Something he didn’t want to make dirty and rotten like he was.

While he hobbled around the kitchen to get the bag he’d stashed under a cupboard, he remembered the way John used to chase Moira around for a cuddle, the slanging matches between Holly and Adam, the way Hannah screamed that she was important too. He’d never been a part of their family, just someone looking in through the window, but it was what he’d never had. It wasn’t fair that that was all gone, and he was left.

He jumped at the hand squeezing his shoulder.

“No deep thoughts, mate…it’s me birthday!”

Aaron grin-grimaced at Adam and his denim cowboy shirt that always made Aaron want to toss him on a mechanical bull.

“Happy birthday,” he said, trying for chipperness but sounding depressed instead.

Adam didn’t seem to notice, too busy studying the front of his card, a cheapie with a photo of a drunk donkey in a party hat.

“To the birthday boy…” Adam read, quickly, eagerly before opening the inside.

Aaron made an eye for the exit door, just in case.

“ _Sorry for bottling your dad_.”

Aaron grinned, more from nerves than anything else, hoping Adam would do the same.

Adam just shook his head, half-smiling, half-sad. Aaron had a feeling it was from disbelief more than anything else.

“Mate, if I was wrong to…”

“Nah,” Adam replied, firmly, as he put the card on the table, “I’ve done enough fucked up things…tried to kill ‘im meself not all that long ago. It’s just…”

His eyes welled up as he sat back down at the table.

“He ain’t me dad…never gonna be, but he’s the closest I got. I know I’m lucky…I should be locked…should be dead instead of Dad…”

Aaron wanted to shake him, smack him, because he remembered the last time Adam talked this low, remembered how scared he was of Adam killing himself, how Adam had nearly killed Cain instead, and set so much of the last few miserable years in motion. He’d never blamed Adam - he’d blamed himself. And he still did now, because he hadn’t been there for Adam, been so busy with Robert and with his own problems.

Shaking off his own guilt, Aaron knelt beside him, but Adam moved away.

“C’mon, Adam, don’t say…”

Adam turned his back, but Aaron could still hear him crying, could feel it in his bones.

“If I don’t say it to you who am I gonna say it to? Mam’ll always stick by me, and James…Dad…does it out’a guilt, and Pete’s a nice bloke…but Ross and Finn treat me like the fuckup cousin they knew when they first moved here, and Hannah and Holly only speak to me when Mum asks ‘em…I make my sisters feel sick…”

Aaron forcibly turned him around, holding Adam’s head in his hands.

“Don’t buy it for a minute. Even if I did, you’ve got…”

Adam laughed in a way that made Aaron think back to the bitter, broken boy he’d reunited with last summer, the one he’d fled France for without a second thought.

“Vic? I’ve got Vic?!?”

He threw the stew bowl against the wall, both of them too used to shocks to react when it shattered into a million pieces.

Aaron went to clean up, but Adam held him in place.

“I clean up me own messes from now on.”

Aaron wished that was true. For either of them. 

Adam started talking as he swept and picked and barely noticed when his fingers would get nicked. He was in a trance Aaron knew all too well.

“Vic was supposed to be how everybody knew, Aaron. I’m all grown up now. I’m not a loser. She’s so tough - she’s taken care of herself from the first day I met her. She gave me another chance, gave me a real chance, so that had to mean something, right?”

“It does mean something,” Aaron said, firmly, walking over to take the broom before Adam snapped it in half.

“Yeah, it means she was wrong. Everybody was wrong who didn’t want me to just rot away in that shithole.”

Aaron took him over to the sink to wash and clean the minor cuts. Adam didn’t bother to push him away.

“Wanna know the reason I’m here instead of getting smashed at every pub I can crawl into? It’s cause I’m scared to drink too much…scared of what I might tell her…”

He put his head down, laughing quietly to himself.

“I’m scared to even share a  _bed_  with her, case I say ‘Nessa’s name in my sleep.”

Aaron glanced at the bandages he wrapped around some of the deeper nicks.

“Just put one o’those over your gob…problem solved.”

Adam stopped jutting out his lower lip long enough to smile at Aaron, the sunshine smile that Aaron had once lived for, but now seemed to belong to two other men, to some other time or place.

It still made him happy, made him feel good if he’d done anything to help Adam. It was something he’d never be able to break, even if he wanted to.

Adam pulled him into a deep hug, letting his lightly stubbled cheek rest on Aaron’s heavier beard.

“I try, mate. Haven’t been there for you since…ever. Keep sayin’ I will be but I just let you down instead. I don’t know why you even bother with me anymore…I do try. I’ll keep tryin’. I promise.”

Aaron choked at the honesty, almost too much honesty. He wasn’t sure what they’d be if they got too honest. He knew he didn’t want to face it right now.

“Pressie time,” Aaron said a little too loudly in Adam’s ear before pulling away to hand him the small bag.

Adam had his best Christmas morning face on as he fumbled around, muttering about car keys or a nice watch or ring.

He tried to hide his disappointment when he found a small folder.

“Just open it,” Aaron assured.

Adam’s smile returned, mixed with tears in his eyes, at the images inside.

“Paddy found an old camera of his…older than us, probably. Brought it with him that one Christmas…be grateful he tossed the ones where he and Mam made out on the sofa…”

Probably the last Christmas Aaron had almost felt happy…until this last one, which had led to so much pain and death that he hated himself for still thinking back on it, and the stolen kisses he’d shared with Robert at the bottom of the backstairs, with fondness and yearning.

Adam’s hands shook slightly as he looked at the photo of his family at the dinner table, laughing until they were nearly sick at some joke neither of them could remember anymore.

“It’s Dad…” Adam said, stammering the words, almost scared to say them at the sight of John Barton leaning against a tree, shirt sleeves up to the elbows even in miserable winter weather, looking up and grinning at the clear December day. 

There were more, the same but different, of John whispering in a blushing Moira’s ear, John pretending to punch a smug Adam in the stomach, John pretending not to notice Hannah and Holly rolling their eyes behind him as he and Andy had a flex-off. 

And the last one - a group shot of the whole family, happy, loving, warm, safe. Nothing but the best and brightest future ahead.

Adam hugged him again, this one all-encompassing until barely anything of Aaron was left.

Adam kissed his forehead, letting his lips linger for a few extra seconds. 

“I love you,” he said tenderly, each word stretched out. “I really do.”

Time was when those three words would have broken Aaron as much as they’d kept him alive. Now…well, they still mattered more than Aaron knew they should, but they weren’t everything anymore. 

Aaron broke away first, clearing his throat, clearing his head.

“Why don’t you go show ‘em to Moira,” he suggested, “if you think she’ll be fine with it.”

Adam nodded. 

“Oh, she will. This is…this is the best birthday pressie ever, Aaron. I mean it.”

He let Adam go with one last happy birthday, watched him walk out the way he’d watched him walk out that kitchen door so many times over the years.

When he knew Adam was gone, he pulled one last photo out of his pocket, one he hadn’t wanted Adam to see.

He and Adam had been having a kickabout, refusing to stop until it was nearly dark and everyone was shouting that it was time to go. Treating them like they were kids. And for a minute, maybe they were.

Adam’s head was rested on Aaron’s shoulder, half-asleep, and Aaron was looking at him like he was the sweetest, most precious thing in the world. 

Those boys were long dead, but when Aaron slipped the photo into his back pocket, he remembered all the junk he’d seen on Paddy’s DVDs about parallel worlds and realities, other lives. 

He wondered if there were other Aarons and Adams out there, being what they should have been.

He hoped that wherever they were, they were happy.


End file.
